Another pic..

Ashley, your Earth Angel looks like it’s balling from the rain/ heat. Mine are starting to do the same—it’s been raining here almost every day. I am in OH. My spray program probably wouldn’t work for your conditions since I’m mostly using biofungicides.

1. Don't grow roses that have a tendency to ball up* if you get rain during the blooming season, or for that matter, any other seriously faulted rose that disappoints you for any reason. PERIOD! They frustrated the living daylights out of me, so gone are the disappointing roses from my garden with no regrets. You have to be brutal to get sweet, satisfying results with roses.

2. Grow Black Spot proof/resistant roses only. Plenty to choose from. Select from roses awarded the designation: ADR (Allgemeine Deutsche Rosenneuheitenprufung), A.R.T.S. (American Rose Trials for Sustainability), and from Ping Lim's True Bloom Line (Altman plants True Bloom Roses). Last but not least, do not eliminate a selection from the humble Knock Out line of roses for your consideration. Do not, 'knock,' a Knock Out!

3. In your zone 5a you also must grow roses that are winter hardy, and thrive without any winter protection, increasing in size from a young bush, each year by year, until they stabilize at a nice mature size. The cold winters they must endure should only have minimal negative effects. Light winter die back is acceptable as long as the bush keeps getting bigger every year until it eventually reaches mature size equilibrium.

Such bushes are out there in commerce...more so these days than were available in years gone by. You have to search them out. Always research a rose under consideration, thoroughly, testing them rigorously before purchasing them, through the above listed requirements until you are just about certain you will have great success growing them.

I wish you good success!

*most roses, even thick bloom petaled varieties, look like a mushy, soggy mess after a good rain and it is hot, if your growing season is rainy like mine. Balling up tendencies in certain varieties is an additional liability. Most cupped bloom varieties with high petal counts will always be disappointing.

Moses.

Well thank you all for the advice.. it does make me feel better that it's not something I'm doing/not doing. I thot maybe it was a fungus or thrips or something and I should have been spraying. I have noticed that the ones that are opening since I posted look much better! And yes the rain has stopped.

Rain is a blessing and a frustration during peak blooming season. If your roses are growing satisfactorily and blooming nicely, then rain comes along and makes your peak bloom garden look like it has been badly neglected, just go with the flow, knowing there's nothing much you can do except...

Before a predicted rainstorm arrives, go through your roses and cut all those which you know will be a soggy mess after the storm is over. Enjoy the cut blooms inside in arrangements. Also, when you cut the blooms, make the cut a good deadheading cut for that stem as well. Then, you won't have to go back and deadhead that stem again later. You made the correct cut for good new growth for the future flush already.

Moses.

I think you have thrips

Al Mitchell.. it wouldn't surprise me.. :(

Tendency to ball is bad enough in the right conditions, but add thrips to that tendency, and it looks a lot like your pics. It's like the two factors are working together to keep them from opening properly. I have several that have done this in the past month or so.

Ashley,

i think it is just balling. A few of my risrs look just like that. in tge past I didnt have balling, but itcwas verycrainy lately & then now ibtense heat-buds stickibg together & burned.

If one is located in a thrips area-each year you get them & they destroy “all blooms.” You wouod know of you had thrips. i don’t believe it’s anything but balling.

Balling is more common now…. but humidity will pass & you’ll have regular blooms, again, if you normally have dry summers.

I’m not so sure about that Kitty. I have dry air here and no reason for balling to happen, and yet I have balling on some of my roses. My Abe Darby is a good example just now of what I’m talking about… in one cluster there may be up to 5 roses- one or two may open beautifully and the rest just ball, with nasty brown edges just like the pictures above. Mine are not balling from humidity! It’s thrips. All I have to do is peek between the petals and they are there, scurrying around. It seems odd, but it happens. I’m not home just now or I could take a picture to show you. It never hurts to check for thrips.

I have that, too @judijunebugarizonazn8.

Kitty, you are incorrect that thrips destroy all blooms... you must not have them. Judi (and I) are correct about thrips and balling.

This looks like my Top Cream this year. but it was raining for ten days straight when the buds were forming and starting to open. Even now that its been hot and dry the outer guard petals look bad so i just deadhead thr really bad ones that arent going to open anyway and pull the guard petals off the ones that still look good.

I agree that if this bothers you grow roses that dont do this. In HelpMeFind there is a rating for Rain Hardy. And since my climate is apparently now temperate rain forest Im checking this for all new roses I buy.